Just a week before that, on June 18, 1950, players from the United States and Canada met in in a series of matches in cities along the 3,000 mile long border from Washington state to Maine in a chess war that lasted only one day. In this war the United States won.
The following game was played on board 2 between the teams from New Yor, Ohio and Pennsylvania against a team from Ontario. On board one was Glen Hartleb, an Expert from Erie, Pennsylvania. He was a friend of the nefarious Norman T. Whitaker with whom he coauthored a book on endgame studies. In 1962, Hartleb was killed in a car accident in which Whitaker was seriously injured.
Hartleb's opponent on board one was Frank Anderson (1928-1980), who became the first Canadian born player to receive the IM title (1954).
Conducting the white pieces in today's featured game was Povilas Vaitonis (1911-1983), a Lithuanian–Canadian Master. In 1948, he moved to Canada and settled in Hamilton, Ontario. He was a five-time Lithuanian (1934, 1937, 1938,1942 and 1944) champion and was Canadian champion twice (1951 and 1957).
His opponent was New York Master Roy T. Black (1888-1962), a judge by profession who had a +1 -3 =1 score against Capablanca.
The game itself is a delightful little game. It was amusing to read the original notes...the annotator did what was common in the days of yesteryear...his annotations were based on the result, praising every move of the winner and criticizing every move of the loser.
Of course, Stockfish is a lot more objective. Fritz' analysis function assigns a Weighted Error Value to th game. In this game the values are: White=0.74 and Black=0.87, so the mistakes were not huge and the game was more closely contested than the original annotator gave credit for. I am not sure what Weighted Error Value is, but I do know that the lower the score the better. If you care to wade through the article, ChessBase has what I think is an explanation HERE.
Povilas Vaitonis (Ontario)–Roy T. Black (New York)1–0A16Border Match, Niagra Falls, Canada1950Stockfish 16
A16: English Opening 1.c4 f6 2.c3 c6 3.e4 d5 4.cxd5
More common is 3.exd5 followed by 4.d4 with a Queen's Gambit setup. cxd5 5.e5 g4 An innovation and not a very good one as he will end up losing time
repositioning the N. His best move is 5...d4 5...e4 This has also been
tried. 6.f3 6.xe4 dxe4 7.a4+ c6 8.xe4 is equal. Pogorelov,R (2326)
-Bailet,P (2484) Sitges ESP 2014 6...c6 7.e2 g4 8.0-0 e6 9.d4
equals. Hjartarson,J (2590)-Chernin,A (2600) New York 1995 5...d4 6.exf6 dxc3 7.bxc3 exf6 This boring position offers equal chances. 6.d4 g6
Ordinarily this prepare to fianchetto the B, but here it's to keep black from
getting his K-side destroyed after the N is forced back to h6 and white plays
Bxh6. 7.d3 c6 8.f3 White is clearly better thanks to blak's awkwardly
place N. h6 Already black has development problems. 9.b3 e6 Now there
is a bad hole on f6 and white immediately takes advantage of it! 9...g7
was worth a try. 10.h4 f5 11.e3 xe3 12.fxe3 h6 13.f2 0-0 14.xd5
White is a P up and and has more space and so is clearly better, but at least
black's K-side is intact. 10.g5 a5 11.0-0 f5 12.e2 g7 13.g4
Vaitonis is not wasting time and is going in for the kill. fe7 14.c3
Perhaps white was thinking about Nb5-d6, but it never somes to that. 14.f6 is more deadly. g8 An awful move to have to play,. but there is nothing
better. 14...xf6 15.exf6 g8 16.g5 and black's position is too ugly to
look at. 15.fc1 d7 16.c5 b6 17.b5 and black has no play anywhere on
the boiard. 14...h5 Being able to use the h-file is a pretty forlorn hope. 15.h3 hxg4 Opening the h-file is only going to help white, but
black has to try something. 16.hxg4 a6 17.f6 This is a slip that allows
black to equalize. White should have played 17.Kg2 and then used the h-file to
his advantage. 17.g2 b4 18.xb4 xb4 19.e2 d7 20.h1 xh1 21.xh1 g8 22.h7 f8 23.a3 c6 24.a4 b8 25.c5 with a very good position. 17...xf6 18.exf6 g8 This is a natural move, but it's the wrong followup. 18...c7 A very fine move that makes the once dreamed about K-side attack
possible. Black threatens to plunge his Q into the very guts of white's
position. 19.a4 a pass to demonstrate black's threat. f4 Black has too
many threats to be met. 20.f5 This holds out the longest. xd4 21.g2 exf5 22.g1 xb3 23.axb3 d4 24.h4 xh4 25.f1 f3 26.c3 d3+ 27.e2 h2 28.e1 h3+ 29.g2 xg2# 19.g5 This totally quashes any hope black
had of generating K-side play. d7 19...h3 causes only a temporary lill
in the action as white can easily defend with 20.e2 h5 21.d1 d8 22.e1 xf6 This is his best hope, but after 23.gxf6 xf6 24.f1 f5 25.e3 d7 26.g2 White has fended off the attack and should be abler to grind out a
win. 20.a3 It would have been better to snatch the b-Pawn, but the
complications that result in white winning would be hard to calculate OTB, so
it's hard to criticize this move. 20.xb7 a7 21.b3 h3 22.d1 b7 23.g2 e5 24.h1 xh1 25.xh1 e4 26.e5 xe5 26...exd3 27.h8 f8 28.g7+ e8 29.xg8# 27.h8 d8 28.xg8+ e8 29.h1 b6 30.h8 e6 31.xa6
with an easy win. 20...c7 Missing his chance to counterattack and breathe
new life into his position. 20...h3 21.d1 xf6 22.gxf6 0-0-0 23.g2 dh8 with complete equality! In Shootouts from this position white scored +1
-0 =4 21.e2 Putting th kibosh on ...Qf4 d6 The original annotator was
critical of this asking the question was black's only reason for this move a
desire to get his Q off the open c-file? The truth is that there is nothing
else that is even slightly better. 21...e5 is a bid for active play, but
after 22.xd5 e6 23.c5 d8 24.c2 exd4 25.fe1 d6 26.ad1 White's
advantage will prove decisive because black is, in effect, playing without the
N and R. He is also faving a potential Bxg3. 22.b6 Hereabouts Stockfish
is recommending different move because they are a few hundredths of a P better,
but that is inconsequential, e5 ...and loses. 22...h3 is better, but it
would not save the game. 23.e5 and black is out of useful moves and can
only wait for the inevitable. 23.xe5 e6 This allows an abrupt end, but
he was lost no matter what he played. 23...d8 24.f4 xf6 24.f4 d6 25.fe1 f8 26.c5 Black resigned. 26.c5 xc5 27.xd7# 1–0
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